Finding (More) Fruit on the Vines: Using Higher Education Research and Institutional Research to Guide Institutional Policies and Strategies (Part II)

This article is the second of a two-part series that examines the utility of higher education research to help guide campus-based interventions to enhance institutional effectiveness. This second article outlines programmatic efforts undertaken to enhance the quality of the first-year experience for new students. It also describes the impact of these interventions on the first-year student experience. The article closes with a summary of the lessons learned from these efforts and delineates a series of recommendations for higher education administrators interested in using the research literature to enhance institutional effectiveness.